How to Maintain Your Sanity While Self-Editing Your Book
Photo by Sinziana Susa on Unsplash
About The Author:
Rachael Cooper is the SEO & Publishing Manager for Jericho Writers, a writers services company based in the UK and US. Rachael has a Masters in eighteenth-century literature, and specialises in female sociability.
In her free time she writes articles on her favourite eighteenth-century authors and, if all else fails, you can generally find her reading and drinking tea.
Editing can undo even the greatest writers. While the creative spirit flies high for writers during the drafting stage, many find editing to be boring and tedious. Some even skip the process altogether.
Unfortunately, there’s no way around the fact that editing is, for most, nowhere near as fun as the free sprint of a first draft. However, if you want to finish, pitch, and sell your story, then you must accept that your manuscript will need to undergo multiple types of editing, including development, line-, and copy-editing. A final proofread is also essential to identify any remaining grammar and style mistakes in the text.
Does the mere thought of rereading your own words enough times to complete these processes make you feel like you might turn into an aggro-filled monster? To maintain your sanity while self-editing your book, here are a few simple tips to try out today.
Practice wearing one hat at a time
To effectively bring their stories to life, writers have to wear multiple hats. Somedays, you’re a creator. Other days, you’re an editor, reader, or critic. If you try to wear more than one of these hats at once, you’re going to set yourself up for failure. Instead, pick out the best hat for the weather.
When you’re writing, wear your writer hat. Forget about spelling, grammar, sentence structure, and all the other boring rules of Grade 3 English. Allow yourself to be totally free and creative. All editing will do is slow you down as you write.
Conversely, when it comes to self-editing your book, pretend you are your Grade 3 teacher. Grab a red pen and start slashing, circling, and scratching out mistakes in your over-enthusiastic, error-riddled writing. It doesn't matter if there are a hundred errors per page; now is the time to fix them.
This is rule number one and perhaps the most important. If you try to do wear multiple hats, then you’re going to stultify your creativity. Instead of devising wonderful scenes full of punchy dialogue between killer characters, you'll be stuck wondering if 'definitely' is spelled with an i or an a.
Give your book some breathing room
Once you've finished your first draft, set it aside for a while. You may be tempted to start editing immediately, but doing so doesn’t allow you to gain enough objectivity to see all those glaring errors in your text. You’ll only see what you believe the words should say given that you just wrote them.
Instead of diving straight into self-editing, I’d recommend starting something else. Grab a book, write some stream of consciousness, go for long walks, get started on your next great novel — whatever you need to do to get out of the headspace you were just in.
Then, after a few weeks or months, you’ll have forgotten the details of your work enough that you can edit your manuscript with fresh eyes. You’ll never truly see your book as a first-time reader might, but this objectivity can make a huge difference in your ability to self-edit effectively.
Fresh eyes help you catch technical mistakes as well as more fundamental errors in structure, narrative, and characters. Giving yourself a little time and space will help tremendously with developmental and structural editing.
Read, read, read — and then read some more!
The cleaner your first draft, the less intensive the edits you’ll need to complete in drafts two, three, and onward. And the surest way to write a better first draft is to improve your ability by reading. The more extensively you read, the better the quality of your writing will become.
I'd recommend reading anything you can get your hands on. Read great writing to see what you're aiming for. Read awful writing to see what you're trying to avoid. If and when you notice something you either love or hate, make a note of it. Ask yourself why.
Remember, every writer started out as a reader. So, do your homework and pick up every book you can get your hands on. Not only will reading help you instinctively come up with better plots and characters, but it's a fantastic way to improve your writing skills and reduce the time you spend line-editing, copy-editing, and proofreading.
Develop your story before drafting
To avoid lengthy and intensive developmental editing (i.e. story-level revisions), take the time to develop your story before drafting. Diving headfirst into an undeveloped story idea is almost always a sure way to draft a manuscript full of development weak points.
Instead, take the time to see if your characters can stand up to two-hundred pages of investigation before putting pen to paper. Ask yourself a few fundamental questions. Do you have a strong central conflict? Are your characters round enough? Do you actually want to spend months bringing this particular story to life?
Without a sound plan for your story, you can get lost in the first draft. Once you’re lost, it won’t be long before you’ll feel the pressure to don a different hat, either that of editor or planner. And then you’ll have broken our first rule. So plan your work first, draft it second, and edit it last. Keep a clear division between these processes, and you’ll be sure to maintain your sanity.
Use technology (but don't abuse it)
Tools like Scrivener, Grammarly, and HemingwayApp can improve your writing by complementing your creative abilities with nitpicky editing and proofreading capabilities. Their user-friendly designs make writing error-free prose a breeze.
That said, try not to over-rely on tech. No app or website will get your characters out of plot holes or help you brainstorm with the perfect ending. Ultimately, you're still the creator. If your ideas aren't strong enough to carry your story, no piece of technology will fix them. Take the time to learn the craft, then use tech to supplement your self-editing work.
Finally, when it's time to edit, edit
Writers are editors. They're also readers, fans, creators, planners, dreamers, critics, managers, marketers, and soothsayers. Being clear about which one you're supposed to be when can help you keep your head, even when you're on the twenty-second draft of your book!
